I’d like to thank the member from Mushkegowuk–James Bay for his passionate and articulate speech on Bill 46.

Boil-water advisories are a national and provincial disgrace that they continue to this day with very little action. I wanted to share the words of Deshkan Ziibiing, the Chippewas of the Thames First Nations, who have some concerns about some of the potential areas for carbon sequestration. It has been shown by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry to be quite close to COTTFN lands. There is no commitment in Bill 46 to require First Nations’ consent for carbon capture, utilization and storage, and they ask that there be early and meaningful involvement of impacted First Nations, and, in addition to consultation, the province must seek consent of First Nations before proceeding with CCUS projects.

My question to the member: Do you suspect that the government understands the difference between consultation and consent?

It’s always a pleasure to rise in the House. Today, I’m speaking to third reading of Bill 46, and I’m going to focus my concerns on schedule 5 of the bill, which amends the Oil, Gas and Salt Resources Act, removing a clause that prohibits carbon capture in Ontario while simultaneously lifting the prohibition on enhanced oil recovery.

Speaker, I’m deeply concerned about this particular provision of the bill because of the risk it presents to the people of Ontario. The government’s own discussion paper discussed this risk, which is why I was surprised to see it in this bill. I want to quote from the government’s own paper: “Careful site selection and extensive study would be required to ensure that the carbon dioxide could be stored safely.” The paper goes on to say, “As the ministry accommodates new activities and technology, stronger, more proactive oversight would be needed to prevent impacts to people and the environment and ensure that project proponents that are undertaking any activity under the Oil, Gas and Salt Resources Act are doing so safely and responsibly.”

Speaker, there’s been no indication since the Auditor General’s report came out at the end of last year raising serious concerns about the end of oil and gas wells in Ontario that the government has mitigated this risk. It isn’t indicated in the bill. It hasn’t been indicated in any announcements. So why would the government be moving forward with this, calling literally protections—if you talk to the folks in Wheatley, like, serious protections—calling it red tape reduction?

Furthermore, Speaker, anyone who read yesterday’s IPCC report on the climate crisis knows that we are facing a serious choice. As the UN said, we are going to go down the highway to climate hell or we’re going to build a livable future, and if we’re going to build a livable future—I want to say exactly what they said: Any new fossil fuel developments are utterly incompatible with the net-zero emissions required for a safe and livable future.

Enhanced oil recovery will lead to more climate pollution, which is completely incompatible with what has been widely circulated by not only the IPCC, but the International Energy Agency and so many others. We cannot increase fossil fuel extraction, even through enhanced oil recovery, and have any hope of meeting our climate obligations, so I would suggest the government is wrong with the schedule in this bill.

By the way, solar power now is the cheapest source of electricity in the world. That’s what all the international agencies say. That’s why most of the global investment now is going into solar—a little less so for wind, but also into wind and into water power, because those are the low-cost sources of generation.

And so yes, 10 years ago—

Interjections.

I appreciate the question, and I appreciate the member’s advocacy for industry in the member’s riding—I really do. But I also think we need to have an honest conversation in Ontario. The International Energy Agency, which historically has been pro-fossil-fuel and is incredibly conservative, has said that if we have any hope of a livable future, meeting our climate obligations, we can have no more new fossil fuel infrastructure developed.

And so when we’re talking about carbon capture and storage, we will have to capture and store CO₂, but if we are doing that to replace the expansion of fossil fuel use, then it’s not going to serve the function that we need it to serve. We need to both dramatically reduce carbon pollution that we’re emitting right now, and we need to take CO₂ out of the atmosphere at the same time. It can’t be one or the other. Far too often, one is being used to replace the other, and that is not sustainable.